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If you are like most Outer Banks business owners, you want to get your business ready for the summertime. In this article, we will discuss basic link building techniques that will give you exposure to new clients and help create authority in your specific industry for your brand.
A link is short for a hyperlink. A hyperlink acts as a bridge that your readers and search engines use to navigate the internet. It allows new Websites, Social Media profiles, videos on Youtube and pins on Pinterest to be uncovered as relevant pieces of content on the internet >>> Search engines see relevant content as sources that deliver an answer that a reader is searching for.
Ten O Six is a restaurant located on the Beach Road in Kill Devil Hills at MP 8.8. It is right next door to Just For the Beach Rentals where the original Dirty Dick’s Crab House, first opened.
Did you know, search engines are web crawlers of the internet that are constantly crawling everything on the internet. There are two fundamental uses of search engines and the links they come across:
There are two fundamental uses of search engines and the links they come across:
As a search engine crawls all of the pages on a website, they can extract the content of the pages it crawls and adds them to its files. Once the files are indexed, the real magic starts....
It is reviewed to see if a page offers sufficient quality to be ranked for specific keywords.
Not only are search engines looking at the content but they are also counting the number of links pointing to specific pages from external websites. A search engine sees “more links” to a web page from both internal and external website pages as a “Vote of confidence” about the page being linked to.
The theory is that a page would not get links if it did not deserve it. Most people accept this because… you would not send your friend to eat at a bad restaurant, right?
SEO’s that do well today dedicate serious resources (time, money, and skilled labor) towards their link building campaigns.
So now that you have a basic understanding of how search engines work, here are 3 Actionable Ways to build Quality Links before summertime….
Link building often involves you reaching out to local websites and business owners that are relevant to your target market with a recently completed piece of content --- an article or infographic that you can share with them.
In layman’s terms, link building is just an internet term for word of mouth marketing but with a much larger reach.
As in word of mouth, a common goal of building these relationships is building links but it is also important to build long-term relationships with these local business owners & key influencers --- it can mean that your business becomes highly regarded and trusted while at the same time you are creating genuine evangelists and advocates for your business.
Yes, this is guest blogging but not in the form of creating low-quality content and hoping to gain multiple links from low-quality websites. You will be expected to create high-quality unique content and in return, you get a high-quality link from an established community (what search engines love).
Be Prepared… Most communities that allow outside guest writers have guidelines to create more exclusivity and because they have a better understanding of the types of content that their community expects.
Types of original unique content pieces that will get the most engagement will be:
Once your article has been published be sure to share links to your article on their website. You can do your normal posting on your social media profiles but remember as you continue to share other articles on other sites try and continue to share your other guest blogging links if it works itself into the text of your content.
Tell Us About Your Article Idea and let’s see if we can get it published here on our blog!
Creating listings in business directories that outline legitimate information attached to your brand or service is still an appropriate step to take when it comes to earning links.
However, you need to keep your target audience in mind at all times and think about whether or not the directory you want to work with will lead to a new quality link or better yet lead to a new quality link while driving qualified referral traffic.
Do not place your listing in a directory that has nothing to do with your primary message or service that your brand offers. This could lead to some trouble with Google (possible deindexing) due to the concept of “building links just to build them.”
Instead, identify which specific directory sites engages with your brand’s target audience, based on information related to the online behavior of your audience.
Popular, credible directory sites such as Yelp and Foursquare and TripAdvisor create links that derive from authoritative sources and that connect brands with real, qualified consumers.
If you are looking for high quality and credible directory sites that are hyperlocal then you must add your business to these local Outer Banks Directories:
So now you have actionable steps to get your business’ online marketing in line before the chaos arrives. Let us know what link building initiatives you have used for your business.
As a business owner today, you understand the importance of your business being found online.
While creating content and writing blogs can help, a very important step in ensuring the longevity of your businesses search engine ranking authority is creating and maintaining up to date business listings across the web.
A local business listing is an online profile that contains your business name, address, phone number, and other details (NAP). Thousands of websites and directories allow local business owners to create free business listings. Some you may already have heard about include Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, Internet Yellow Pages, and Yahoo! Local.
The purpose of creating local listings is to make your business visible on the Internet. Each new listing you create increases your chances of being found by customers.
Did you know that many of the local business indexes share data with each other. Thus, the more places you are listed and the more visible you are, the more these indexes trust the accuracy of your business data—increasing your chances of ranking well in local searches.
FYI...
Most people think of local listings as only working for local search marketing, however it also offers citations that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing incorporate into their search algorithms.
Check Your Local Outer Banks Business Listing Now powered by Umbrella Local
Umbrella Consultants is a team of professional web designers, web developers and marketers with offices located in San Diego, CA and Kitty Hawk, NC. Our consultants have a combined history of over 30 years in the web design industry and Yes!, the technology within our field is constantly improving!!.
One of the most rewarding parts of our job is staying on top of all the latest trends and capabilities available to ensure our customers can always meet their unique website goals and business objectives.
From the beginning, we have never been married to a specific tool, service or methodology. For us always recommending the right tool for the job requires careful consideration of many factors, tools, languages, and methodologies.
We pride ourselves on thinking outside of the box to come up with the best fit solution for our clients’ needs.
Umbrella Consultants is a web development firm with two offices in San Diego, CA and Kitty Hawk, NC. Would you like a Free Demo of Umbrella CMS? Contact us or give us a call 252-573-8027.
Essentially, they make it easier for Google to determine that your business is real and legitimate. In turn, Google then gives you a better ranking in search results, and your potential customers can find your site more easily.
For local listings to really help you convert leads to sales, though, you need to know how to effectively post your information.
If your information is accurate and posted effectively, your site will appear higher in SERP (search engine results page) rankings. If you’ve written effective, SEO-friendly content and meta content, then users will be even more likely to click on your site than other results.
Then, if you’ve implemented a good online marketing strategy, you should have the content, images, and media on your site to draw your leads in and convert them to customers.
For this to happen, though, you need to ensure that the information you post is accurate. It’s easy to get sloppy and make typos when you’re entering your information into multiple sites. It’s repetitive work, and it can be difficult to catch every small mistake if you’re doing it all by hand.
If you go the manual route, be sure to stay on top of proofreading every entry you make. Believe it or not, you can actually confuse Google by entering different info in different listings.
The search engine may read this as multiple companies instead of multiple listings for the same company, which can result in your SERP rank taking a big hit.
Duplicate listings provide another obstacle when driving traffic to your site and converting leads to sales. If you need to update your contact information on a listing (in the event that you move, change phone numbers, etc.), you may have some issues with your local listings.
Some sites make it easier than others to edit and update your information, while others make it a little bit too easy to accidentally duplicate your listing.
If your business ends up listed twice with conflicting information, it can confuse both search engines and potential customers. Likewise, listings with old information won’t help your search results and can actually hurt your rankings, as well.
If you make sure that your listings are always up to date, accurate, and that there are no duplications, then you’ll be able to get the most benefit from your local listings.
If all of that sounds like a lot of work, it’s because it is. Fortunately, though, you don’t have to manually enter your data into all of your local listing sites. Just list and manage your company info with Outer Banks Concierge, and you can have it automatically pushed to all of the biggest listing sites and data aggregators online.
And, if you need to make updates, just let Umbrella Consultants know, and those will be taken care of for you, too. You don’t have to spend hours and hours dealing with local listings to convert more leads to sales – just choose the right listing management service, and everything will be done for you.
Try Outer Banks Concierge's listing management service today and see how quickly you can get better results for your business.
Getting local citations (mentions of the name of your business, along with contact, website, and address information) is a great way to drive more meaningful traffic to your website.
In fact, citations can actually drive more traffic to your site in a couple of different ways.
First, people who are actively searching the listings and data aggregators that cite you will find your contact information.
Second, and better yet, Google and Bing both use citations to determine which sites get the highest ranks on their SERPs (search engine results pages).
Of course, you already know that citations are good for your search engine optimization (SEO). You’re wondering how you can get more citations and increase your rankings and traffic.
Here are a few ways to get more citations for your business and your site.
First of all, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time on your hands, right? So the idea of manually entering your business’ information into big data aggregators’ sites and business listings probably sounds like a pretty terrible chore.
Well, yes, it is, but you don’t have to do it yourself.
With a listings management service like the one offered by Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge, you can get it all done for you. Just supply them with your company’s name and information, and they’ll push that info to the largest, most trusted business listings, directories, and aggregators online.
The best part about a service like this is how easily you can manage your listings. Not only can you get your information pushed to all of those sites and apps with just one step, but you can also make changes to your company’s information whenever you want.
Then, Umbrella Local Listing Management Service will make all of your updates for you. It’s simple, and it could be the easiest way around to drive more traffic to your site.
In addition to automatically getting citations on large listings and aggregator sites, though, you can also reach out to local blogs and online publications that are relevant to your business.
If you don’t already have one or more publications in mind, search for “[your area] [your industry] blog.” Then you can send them information about your business. If they have local business listings, you can get added to these, or you could even get your citation in a blog post or article.
Industry blogs and online magazines are often given more weight by local search engines than other sites, so this kind of citation can be hugely beneficial to bumping you up a few places in search rankings.
Expert citations and features aren’t just great for SEO, though – they’re also great for building up your reputation in your industry.
Between automated listing management through a service provider like Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge and reaching out to relevant local blogs and publications, you can do a lot to get more traffic, more leads, and more conversions for your business.
Speak with one of our Umbrella Local consultants and see how we can help makes a difference in your Local Citation Marketing Strategy.
If you’ve been paying attention to changes and trends in SEO (search engine optimization) lately, you’ve probably noticed people talking about local search citations. Unless you’re already familiar with local citations in the context of SEO and business, this term is probably somewhat confusing.
To understand why local search citations are important to your business, you first have to understand what citations are and how they work.
Whenever your business’ name is mentioned on a website that’s not affiliated with yours, even when there is no link back to your website, that’s a citation. If that mention is associated with your area or location, then it’s considered a local citation.
Examples of local citations can include the Yellow Pages, Yelp, and other business listings, data aggregators, and directories.
Now, you may be wondering how citations like these can help your business, especially if they don’t necessarily include a back link to your website. Well, with or without those links, local citations are incredibly good for SEO. Basically, if two websites for similar companies have roughly the same keyword density, the same traffic, and the same quality content, both Google and Bing will favor the one that has more local citations on other sites.
So, the more citations you have, the higher you can rise in search results rankings.
If you’re neck-and-neck with one of your competitors for traffic, leads, and customer conversions, a boost in local citations could be all you need to get an edge on them.
With most business listings and data aggregators, you’ll have to push your listing to them to get a citation. Doing this manually can be incredibly time consuming, but you might do it yourself because it’s worth it to you to get a head start on your competition and to drive more traffic to your site.
However, what happens when you move locations? What if you need to change or add a phone number? Suddenly, you’re looking at doing all that work over again.
Why? Because local citations really only work in your favor if all of the data about your company is accurate. This is where good local citation management comes in.
When you find a good local listings management provider, you don’t actually have to do any of your own work on your local citations. Instead, you can just give them your information, and they will automatically push it to all of the appropriate sites and listings for you.
Then, when you need to update your info, you can just let them know, and they’ll manage all of your updates for you.
Umbrella Consultants now offers an easy way to control all of your business listings and local citations in one place. You don’t have to manually enter your company info over and over again, and if you need to make changes, you can do it once and trust Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge to handle the rest.
Get an edge on your competition with Umbrella Consultants and local citations for your company.
You’ve taken the time and energy to create an attractive and functional website for your company. You’ve studied SEO tricks and tips, and you know to use keywords naturally and never to sacrifice quality content for keyword stuffing.
You should also know that local citations are incredibly important to your search engine optimization, too, and that your SEO job isn’t done when you finish creating your website.
Local citations on data aggregator sites and business listings can help push you up in the ranks of SERPs (search engine results pages) for both Google and Bing. With the right citations, you can get a real jump on your competition, and here’s why…
Google and Bing both use a number of algorithms to determine the ranking on their search results. While location-based searches have long been a big factor in SERP rankings, mobile technology is making location even more important.
Why?
Because the developers at Google and Bing understand that people who are searching for businesses on their smartphones and tablets often do so while they’re on the go. They’re searching for the services and products they need in a very specific area because they’re already headed out the door or are in the car looking for the closest place where they can finish running their errands.
As a result, when someone in your area performs a search for a keyword associated with your business, the search engine is going to find your website.
How high your site appears on the SERPs, though, depends on how many local citations the search engine hit on when it found your site.
So, if you appear in numerous business listings in the area, you’re going to show up a good deal higher in the ranks than you would if you weren’t listed.
When you list your business name, URL, physical address, and phone number with large business listings online, you’re going to see more traffic on your site.
When you look at your analytics tools, you’ll probably notice that a lot of that traffic is coming from mobile devices.
If you have a mobile-friendly site that shows people why they should visit your business and why they should choose your products or services, you’re very likely going to notice an increase in sales and physical traffic to your location. That’s because people searching for the products and services you offer while they’re in your area are going to find you before they find other businesses.
Of course, to get the benefits of local citations, you’re going to need to ensure that all of your data is accurate and that it’s pushed to the biggest listings possible. That’s where you can benefit from a service that does it all for you.
Umbrella Consultants has developed a service that completely automates your local citations and listings.
You just need to supply Umbrella Local partnered with Outer Banks Concierge with your business info, and they’ll push it to all of the most important listings to get you better search results rankings. Then, if you need to make changes, update the info in your account and your listings will be updated for you. It’s simple, easy, and great for driving more business your way.
Try it today and see how much more traffic you can get.
Effective SEO today goes far beyond the old days of keyword optimization. While keywords are still important, as they’re the basis for all Google and Bing searches, they aren’t the only SEO factor driving traffic to your site. In fact, it can be argued that external citations are just as important as internal keyword use.
When you Google your business, where does it show up in the results page? If it’s not first, you have an SEO problem. Basically, this shows that your business doesn’t have enough credibility online to allow Google to place it first in the ranks. Simply getting local citations with your business’ name, address, and phone number on a few data aggregators, business listings, and/or review sites could solve this problem.
Not only that, but local listings can also increase your search results rankings when people search for keywords related to your business. This is basically because your listings give you more credibility with Google and Bing.
Think of it this way, when you see a company you’ve never heard of before offering great prices on a service you want, what are you going to do? Well, if you’re like most people today, you’re going to Google them. If they don’t have any online presence or a weak presence, you’re probably going to assume that the deal is too good to be true and move on to a seller with more of a presence.
The same thing happens with Google and Bing’s search algorithms. If they see you represented on multiple trusted listings, then you’re going to get a higher ranking in search results. And, as we all know, the higher you are in the ranks, the more likely people are to click on your site.
At the same time, just as in the example above, your customers will see your name and address in listing and review sites they trust. As a result, they’ll start to become more familiar with your name and more trusting of you as a business, and they’ll be more likely to click on your site instead of your competition.
Local listings also do a lot for local-specific searches, especially for mobile searches. When users search for a type of business, product, or service on their mobile devices, search engines use their location to make the best, most convenient recommendations.
They don’t just base their results rankings on location and proximity, though. Your competition might be right next door to a customer looking for your products or services, but if you have more local listings, your business will likely show up first in the search results.
Getting local citations and listings for your business can be tedious and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.
With Umbrella Local, you can sign up for your business' listing management service that allows you to enter your information once and have it pushed to all of the major listing sites and aggregators to get you more traffic and better search results rankings. Try it out and see what local listings can do for your business.
